absent minded

I think I've got some 'Busy Mom Brain' setting in, but I'm not sure what Mike's problem is.  :)  Yesterday morning we got home from my brother's house and I realized I had a burp cloth over my shoulder - rode the whole way home with it and didn't realize it until we were in the house for a bit.  Then Mike asked if I had grabbed the other burp cloth when we left, but then he found it in his back pocket.  Also went home like that and didn't realize it until I had noticed mine!  I'm just glad I didn't go in public anywhere sporting my stylish accessory...

Saturday we actually managed to do a little yard work.  It was nice!  Now that it's almost July I got some flowers planted around the lamp post where there are daffodils in the spring.  I'm so thankful that the last couple years I put work into planting perrenials in the flower beds - low maintenance is what I need right now.  Of course there are a few areas that still need work, but I think things at least look halfway decent and not completely neglected.

Caleb was totally flirting with a couple girls in the church nursery this morning.  I was trying to feed him and I could hardly get him to eat he was so distracted.  The nursery has one of those half circle tables with I think 6 built in seats.  Caleb and Logan were on one side while I was feeding them, and the girls were on the other side.  Caleb was looking over, 'talking', and hitting the table - trying to get their attention and show off I guess?  I have alot of fun watching Caleb and Logan interact with each other, now it's fun to see how they interact with other kids too. 

They are both improving with how well they sit up.  I can't quite just leave them sitting up unassisted, but Logan is almost good enough.  Caleb wants to crawl so bad - he'll be trying to reach a toy, arms and legs just going, but he hasn't figured it out yet.  Yesterday I saw him sorta get up on all fours.

date night

Last night we had a date night, but I'll get to that later - I've got to go through things chronologically...

First of all, a couple weeks ago I think I said something about having a bad day and I was going to post about it later - I was going to take a pic of the 'damage' but never got around to it, so I'll just go ahead.  After getting groceries one day I was bringing some things to our chest freezer in the basement.  When I opened the lid I noticed some water dripping.  Now, my highly scientific mind (ha ha) knows that liquid and ice are two different forms of H2O and the idea of a freezer is to keep things in the 'ice' form and there should NOT be liquid in there.  Here's the kicker, I had LOTS (like almost half the freezer) of milk in there that I had worked very hard to pump and save up.  I checked the box on top and the bags in there were thawed.  I was devasted and panicked - called Mike at work just bawling my eyes out.  "I invested so much time, effort, and emotion into this...I was going to save us money by not needing to buy as much formula..."  There are a select few of you that understand what a huge deal this was.  :)

Well, after taking a few minutes to calm down and further investigate, it wasn't a total loss.  Thankfully, I caught it before everything was totally spoiled.  The deal with breastmilk is that once thawed you cannot refreeze it, and you need to use it within a couple days.  So, there were a few boxes full that were still frozen enough to move to the upright freezer in the garage.  Everything else I put in the fridge and used as much as possible over the next couple days.  So in the end we basically lost one big tupperware container full.  It's hard to throw any away, but it could have been SOOOO much worse.  Do you think I've learned my lesson to not freak out right away about a situation and wait to see how the Lord will work things out?  Probably not.  :)

Okay, on to our life more recently.  My sister and her family were in town for a short visit at the end of last week.  I think I posted about our Girls Night.  Their visit was timed so that they could go to our Tiemeyer (my mom's side) Family Reunion over the weekend.  My aunt and uncle hosted the event at their cottage on Half Moon Lake.  We went for the day on Saturday.  This family is quite spread out, so it's hard to get everyone together and we were still missing a few, but alot were able to come and it was a nice time.  Great weather, great food, great company.  Here's a pic of my mom with her siblings.  (Left to right: Carol, John, Nancy, Kathy, Beth, Joy, Judy.)

Last night we had a date night with my brothers and sisters-in-law.  They are kidless right now, so we got a babysitter and joined them for a night out!  Mike and Emily's kids are at her parents this week for their church's Vacation Bible School and it coincides with Mike and Emily's anniversary.  Eric and Lea Anne's kids are at her parents for two weeks for their Vacation Bible School and Lea Anne is busy taking a class at MSU every day.  So anyways, we figured we'd better take advantage of the situation!  It was a fun evening.  (Left to right:  me, Mike, Lea Anne, Eric, Emily, Mike.  All I've got to say for myself is that our AC is not working, it's really hot, and I could barely stand to get ready to go out...)

check-up

Tonight was Caleb and Logan's 6 month check-up.  Here are the stats:  Caleb is 25 3/4 inches long (15th percentile) and 13lb 11oz (off the charts); Logan is also 25 3/4 inches long, and is 13lb 14oz (off the charts as well).  Yes, the boys are still small for their age, but they are gaining, healthy, and doing well developmentally so the doctor is not concerned.  As he says, "they're just a little peanuty".  :)  We don't have to go in for any weight checks coming up!!  Nothing scheduled until their 9 month visit.

Before checking them over the doctor mentioned some of the developmental things they should be doing.  Then he got to witness firsthand how they like to grab at things - his stethoscope, his watch, the thingie he used to look in their ears, the paper on the bed...  He just laughed and said, "Yup, that's perfect!"  When Logan was laying down getting checked over he totally grabbed the paper over is head and pulled it down over himself, and then he spit up big time too - thankfully it was on the paper and that's an easy clean up.  I felt like the room was a disaster by the time we left!

They did have to get shots at this appointment.  Mike and I noticed that they both seemed to have more of a 'pain' scream this time - they both screamed at previous shots, but it just sounded different this time.  No shots at the next visit - phew!

girls night!

I think the Steenwyk Girls Night is going to become an annual event now.  Between everyone's busy schedules it's hard to fit it in when my sister's in town, but it's much needed time out.  Last year we went out for dinner then maternity clothes shopping for me.  This year was an outing to spend birthday money from my parents in downtown Holland (support local businesses!).  No, I didn't get anything yet, but that's a whole other issue...  :)  I'm considering going back to get an antique camera that we saw in a shop window - in the past I've thought about putting up a couple shelves in the office and collecting a few old cameras for decoration.  Certainly there are other things that would be more practical, but my mother has reminded me that it's okay to spend birthday money on something fun.  :)

Last Friday Caleb, Logan, and I joined Eric, Lea Anne, Boden, and Heidi for Kids Tunes and Noon in Holland.  They have a number of these concerts throughout the summer, and they're supposed to be at Kollen Park, but due to the rain we were in the Civic Center.  It was still fun!  We put our blankets on the floor and had a picnic lunch during the concert.  This one was the Candy Band, a group of four moms from the east side of the state.  I'm not sure what the boys thought of it all.  :)

Saturday was Mike's birthday.  We haven't technically gone out to dinner for his birthday yet because neither of us were feeling 100% and we don't want to go out for a nice dinner when we can't fully enjoy it.  :)  We pretty much just had the day around home, which is a very rare event for us. 

Sunday afternoon Caleb and Logan got to meet their Uncle David for the first time!  Now they have finally met all their uncles.  :)  David was in town for Grandpa Krol's visitation and funeral, and managed to have a little extra time to come over for a bit.

Everthing (as far as I know...) went well for the visitation and funeral.  There were so many people that came to show their love and support for the family!  We really appreciated the funeral service on Monday.  Mike's Uncle Joe presented a very clear salvation message - I'm sure it's just what Grandpa wanted.  I didn't take a picture, but I gotta say that Mike looked quite handsome in his new suit.  :)

I think that pretty much catches things up on the recent events.  We've been busy!

Caleb and Logan are doing well.  They continue to eat lots - they have now had squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes...yum!  Caleb is always on the go just rolling all over the place.  He also loves to jump - we noticed that in the exersaucer he tries to jump, so the other day we got out the Jumperoo and gave it a try.  I'll post the movie clip sometime.  Logan is doing very well at sitting up.  I can't believe how fast they are changing!

almost sitting

Here's a clip of Caleb and Logan almost sitting together. Logan can sit for several seconds before tipping over, Caleb's not quite as steady.

remember

We're remembering Mike's Grandpa Krol today.  He passed away this morning after struggling with his health for awhile.  We're so glad he was able to meet and hold Caleb and Logan.  The above photo is from a visit soon after the boys were born.  We had more visits over the last several months, but I did not take photos as Grandpa just didn't look like the man we knew and want to remember.  The last few times we visited he was still able to hold the boys a bit, and they both smiled real nice for him too - I was so proud of them!  :)

This is a bittersweet day.  Even though we can rejoice that Grandpa is with his Heavenly Father, and be thankful that he is no longer suffering, it is still sad to see someone special go.  He's probably pretty busy praising God, but hopefully he's had a chance to be reunited with Mike's dad after 15 long years.

It wasn't that long ago that Grandpa was still able to joke around and tease - when we would visit and one of the boys would cry he would say that must be a Steenwyk trait...  Before the boys were born he insisted on calling them Claus and Jake (he would say it like Yay-kee).  This past fall when his health was failing and we weren't sure if he would get a chance to meet the boys, we wanted him to know the names we planned on using even though it was a secret to everyone else.  He didn't want us to tell him because he was worried that with all the drugs he was on he would just blurt them out sometime.  :)  So, we just made sure he knew that one of the boys would have Harold for a middle name, and we didn't tell him anything else.

We certainly appreciate the good example of a Christian man that Grandpa Krol has been, and also Grandpa and Grandma's lasting marriage.  The below photo was taken at their 60th wedding anniversary celebration a couple years ago.

name

Just gotta post real quick that we're pretty sure Caleb recognizes his name!  We've been suspicious for at least a couple days and pretty much confirmed it tonight.  I called out to Caleb and he looked over at me, then Mike called out to Caleb and he looked over at him (and he's been responding like that for a bit but we didn't know if it was just the sound of our voices), but then to really test it Mike called out Logan's name and Caleb didn't respond to that at all.  It's so fun to watch them learning new things!

cottage

On Saturday we were finally able to go check out Mike's brother and sister-in-law's cottage that they bought a few months back.  It was a beautiful day for it!  Caleb and Logan floated around for a while - it didn't take them long to get used to the water.  So far so good turning them into water rats.  :)

Even though we've been very busy, I'm struggling to figure out what to write.  Just feel like my brain is a little mushy right now.  I do want to write a post about my not so good day yesterday, but will do that separately.

I'm listening to the boys talk in their room right now.  It's just about time for them to eat and they've woken up from their naps and are just hanging out in their cribs.  I love it that they do that. 

just for laughs

Mike was trying to get Logan going, and Caleb joined in on the fun.

just like heidi

Apparently Caleb wants to be just like his cousin Heidi who ended up like this a couple weeks ago.  Maybe I need to get bumpers for his crib??

first bites

Meant to post these clips a long time ago - guess I'm a little busy.  :)  These are clips of Caleb and Logan's very first try at cereal back in mid-April.  They are very much improved over what you'll see here!  And, the cereal must be working, they look so much bigger already.